24 May — the report from Day 7.
We rejoined the convoy at the campsite yesterday.
But there is still no relaxing about the car.
Because Paris is thirty days away.
This one week has been as dense as if we had already driven all 37 days, and it has taken me close to my limit — mentally more than physically. Even so, this is the moment you understand again how punishing a long rally is over the thirty days still to come.
And yet it is somehow fun. I cannot stop feeling the anticipation.
The reason I decided to take on a long rally is that the ones I had done ran twelve days at most, and four at the shortest. I used to wish they would go on for ever; I hated the emptiness afterwards.
Now I am standing on the start line of the longest rally in the world: 37 days.
Crossing eight countries from here, and seeing landscapes and a world I have never seen — I can hardly wait.
Strangely, the black days after the start in Peking have gone completely out of my head.
Five days late to the convoy, we still needed to keep testing the car and servicing it carefully.
Leaving the campsite, so as not to fall behind the others, we set off a little before our allotted competitive start time and checked the route thoroughly.
The day’s competitive section was mainly through the desert, so we chose the motorway — the shortest, least punishing way.
In a long rally the result matters, of course, but finishing is the real victory.
Car number 6, a pre-war car that had broken down repeatedly since the start just as we had, asked whether we would like to run together today.
Since coming back to life, they told us, they had stopped worrying about the competition and aimed simply at the finish, working out a different route from the convoy each day.
Away from the desert sand, we ran nicely in convoy on the motorway.
We stopped for breaks along the way.
Number 6, which had overheated over and over just like the 1929 Buick, was a 1928 Ford taxi entered from Chile.
During a break the driver, Heman, said his back was very bad and lay down beside the car.
The entrants’ ages spread widely, but most are perhaps ten years or more older than me.
As the only Japanese entrant I am taken for far younger by a lot of the foreign crews, and being treated like a child is somehow rather nice.
My English is not good and talking is hard, so I said what I meant with a massage. A smile appeared, the ice broke completely, and after that it was “KOMO!” — he had my name firmly.
We worked through the route book and the navigation, but got slightly lost, and although they had asked us to stay together, we went our own way and lost number 6.
The brakes have been poor since the start and we have been adjusting them as we go,
but on the motorway the car ran reasonably well.
We lost the Ford, but we were the first to reach today’s destination.
Going off route can be fatal.
Cars brought in on recovery trucks kept arriving too.
Only a week in, and we are not the only ones fighting mechanical trouble. Plenty of cars are struggling seven days in.
Between the excitement of the campsite last night and the tiredness of not sleeping, today I did not wait for the others:
I ate alone and went to bed early.
More in Day 8.